Let This Be The POLL Which Hoists Our PINK FLAG High! (Wr, Pnk Flg, Pll)

idk this hasn't been done already? just going to click a random track

Looked but couldn't find (found a few threads devoted to this, but no poll). Can anyone post the link?

random track was 'brazil' fwiw

fine random track

the 'three albums' are all more or less equally great and i have no time for those who would seek to define them negatively wrt each other

btw nakhchivan as it's a break in my hideous 27-page project I gotta hand it to you - 23 Years Too Late is getting loads of airplay imr, wanna make a Wire Epics Poll (A Touching Display and longer) so I can vote for it

i like how they have written one of the best ten minute rock songs and the best thirty-forty second rock songs on different incarnations

/in/

they've also written my favourite 4-minute rock song ever. there is nothing they cannot do

they can't put a man on the moon

Dead heat for me between "Mannequin" and "Dot Dash"; they're both among my very favourite songs ever (even though I'd never even heard "Dot Dash" till Carlos).

somehow the greatness of "12XU" escaped me until relatively recently. It is my fav Wire song, and one of my favorite songs, period.

ONE TWO X U! *RAWKS*

Carlos inspired this thread! I've been listening to Pink Flag obsessively ever since seeing it on Sunday and decided to do this poll on a whim.

Toss up between "Fragile" and "Dot Dash" for me.

i mean, seriously, how does this not win?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdNS4g8vOnc

this is the early Wire album I haven't heard enough - this will change over the next few days

154 was always my fav, but it's shifted to Pink Flag over the last month or so. I can't get enough, I have Pink Flag fever.

Glad someone started this poll, if only because the other day I was wastered and was considering starting a thread devoted solely to the greatness of 12XU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIiuqTFp4ig

Record has such unbelievably great guitar tones.

Ex Lion Tamer!

Stay Glued to your TV set.

difficult to envisage how you would have neglected to investigate the other tracks on an album containing one of yr 'very favourite songs ever', and such a short album too! xps

i'm talking about 'i should have known better' BRUV

that was to clemenza

reuters is a sentimental fav, 'how many dead or alive' an eternal refrain...

I still have a clear memory of my friend Peter playing his import 45 of "12XU" for me in 1979, and how funny he thought the intro was.

I've had Pink Flag since 1980. There was no chance to investigate "Dot Dash," seeing as it wasn't on the original album.

"Mannequin" and "Lowdown" are kinda overwhelming.

Another genius thing about Wire is that they had the foresight to give "12XU" a title that's so easily searchable on the internet. I mean, the vision needed to anticipate the widespread use of the internet by a dozen years, crazy

I put your theory to the test and landed on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvmUJGMJcqg

Funny, though they kind of lose the song.

I had to go with Ex Lion Tamer, but their pisstake of the blues (Lowdown) is pretty unfuckwithable. Damn, the whole album is pretty unfuckwithable. They're like old GBV: If you don't like the song you're listening to, just wait 30 seconds and a new one will come on.

REM's cover of "Strange" was what led me to this album in the first place, so I still have kind of a soft spot for the original.

I remember the REM cover (I loved, loved, loved REM at the time, but that's another thread) but the Wire original is much better slower and creepier.

Mannequin no question. If this polled my second favorite I'd spin the wheel like Nakhchivan did upthread. Poll results should = good distribution.

I've had Pink Flag since 1980. There was no chance to investigate "Dot Dash," seeing as it wasn't on the original album.

― clemenza, Thursday, 10 February 2011 02:31 (9 hours ago)

ah right, yeah i often forget that bonus tracks weren't on the original verions of old albums

"Fragile" is fragile.

"Dot Dash" and "Options R" were not on "Pink Flag", they weren't recorded for "Pink Flag", the band insisted they not be included on the remastered version of "Pink Flag", so what are they doing here? Poll is invalid! Abort! Abort! Anyway, this poll has been done before, surely? I remember it.

Ah, there was a poll covering first three albums, I think.

154 was always my fav, but it's shifted to Pink Flag over the last month or so. I can't get enough, I have Pink Flag fever.

Took me years, but I eventually realised that this album is perfect, not a wasted second, from start to finish

perfect album but for me it came down to mannequin and ex lion tamer. voted for the later.

my favorite album ever, if i had to pick

Voted "Ex Lion Tamer". I had to vote for something. "Mannequin" is the best song, but it's a bit too "American", so couldn't vote for that. "Lowdown" is actually my least favourite track on the album... and by some distance too! Somebody said it upthread, the guitar sounds on this album are just superb.

My first experiences were with the edition with "Options R" but no "Dot Dash" (I guess to coerce you into buying On Returning?) and at first I just kind of classed it with the "Paint It Black" on the CD of Crazy Rhythms--unremarkable bonus annoyingly tacked on an otherwise gemlike record. But man, at some point it just lit up for me--the awesome guitar break! The twisty lyric (a better take on the cynical romantic material on the album proper)! That gingerly synthy production! So yeah, "Options R."

putting "dot dash" on here kind of unfair to the album tbh

might go with "mannequin" since I'm american

or "ex lion tamer"

some good yt comments

"ex lion tamer"
i bum dogs to this song
Jake00Is00Funky 5 months ago

"mannequin"
I thought this was something from the 80s. Ahead of thier time. They shouldve taken a bus thru a wormhole so they could visit the future and be quite impressed with themselves.
mindcontrolpete 2 years ago

"dot dash"
dog's dick dog's dick
ryoichiryoichi 1 month ago

"dot dash" might be the most perfect 2 minutes of rock music

yeah, serious internal conflict on this vote (anal record nerd that respects album track listings and generally hates bonus tracks vs. guy that just really likes "dot dash")

Okay, I now realize that I don't own any Wire which is horrible. I need to own at least Pink Flag but I found this at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Flag-154-Chairs-Missing/dp/B00004W3LB/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_lnk

Or I can get the three albums separately for a little less... Or just get Pink Flag by itself. Thoughts?

all three are mandatory to own, you are out of compliance

That's why I am buying them!!! Don't I get a grace period? Some kind of pennance?

Well, since you asked...

you must listen to 12XU 12 times in a row

first time loud, then turning it up each time

I like this pennance! That song rules (I know this from the Minor Threat version as well).

'Three Girl Rhumba'. Not an easy choice, though, 'Fragile', 'Ex Lion Tamer' and 'Mannequin' were also in the last 4.

if your experience of listening to this album in the itunes era is the same as mine, the last track is Uzi (Pinky Ring)

unh?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

reuters always gets stooged in pink flag polls

This poll prompted me to listen to this album (here it is...) again, discovered that in some ways I actually like the really (ludicrously) punky tracks best!

the inevitabowl

thei mpossibowl

such a good album. and it's weird to see the dominance of Mannequin and Ex Lion Tamer in this poll! love them both but this LP has at least 10 songs that are all on some crazy upper plane. i'm usually awful with paying attention to lyrics and remembering them, but whenever pink flag's on i find myself muttering along to certain couplets that have somehow wormed their way into my memory:

Now you ain't got a number, you just want to rhumba,
and there ain't no way you're gonna go under

Go undaaaaaaaaaaaaaah-YEAH!

i can follow stuff like that, of course, but on the whole this feels like one of the less intelligible albums i ever listen to, the vocals are just like sheer attitude to me

wire ballot poll?

have thought about pink flag recently

it's my least favourite of the first three - it's much more difficult and inscrutable than either while also being musically simpler

the sort of album that may end up being my favourite

Eh? Colin Newman's diction is peerless! (xxxp)

Guitar sound on the title track... all I can say is God bless you, Mike Thorne.

RISING
TO THE
SUR-FACE

(xp) only bettered by the opening chord on "Being Sucked In Again", which is a thing of wonder and amazement.